Southeast Marind

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

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van der Kolk and Vertenten (1922) dictionary of Marindineesch

van der Kolk (1926) Marindineesch kin terms

Guertjens (1926) Marindineesch grammar (unobtained)

Guertjens (1933: 46-350) dictionary of and and (pp. 398-433) 455 comparative terms for Marindineesch

Nevermann (1939: 15, …) … for Marind-anim (Southeast Marind)

Boelaars (1950: 1-18) English-language recension of Drabbe's unpublished grammar of Gawir

Drabbe (1954: 128-142) 424 comparative terms for Gawir

Drabbe (1955: ibid.) grammar of and (pp. 148-151) 98 comparative terms for Ooster (East) dialect of Urumb village

Donohue (1996) 159 comparative terms for Kuler village

Sohn, Lebold and Kriens (2009: 31-42) … comparative terms for Matara village

Drabbe (1955: 15-16) gives 18 consonants and 5 vowels for East Marind as follows:

While Drabbe does not specify the precise value of /v/, and made no effort to distinguish between rhotics [r ɾ], a more recent vocabulary of Matara village confirms the labiodental quality of /v/, and gives reflexes of /ɾ/ as retroflexed flap [ɽ] initially and medially and as a trill [r] only finally (q.v. Sohn, Lebold and Kriens 2009: 31-42.)

There is no velar non-stop /ɣ/ because Marind /*ɣ/ has merged with /h.

Drabbe specifies /w/ to be a full consonant only when followed by /i e/, but a semivowel or a diphthong when followed by /a/, such that the sequence written <wa> is heard as [ᵒa ᵘa].

Fricatives /v z/ are said to approach voicelessness, such that /v/ is similar to [f] and /z/ can be heard as [s] finally. Historically, Drabbe's /v z/ reflect Marind non-stops /*w *j/, with his /w j/ reflecting high vowels /*i *u/ in sequence with other vowels. Were this analysis adopted synchronically, the resulting system of 16 consonants is, save for the absence of /ɣ/, identical to that of Proto-Marind:

Drabbe (1954: 128-142) indicates Gawir as well as Mbian vowel length, but in (1955: 15) length is explicitly rejected as non-constrastive, and is characterized as a consequence of environmentally-conditioned stress.

The realizations of mid vowels of /e o/ span the range be between open [ɛ ɔ] and closed [e o], with lengthened occurences tending towards more closed realizations. Conversely, vowels /e a/ during quick speech can approach a schwa [ə] in unstressed positions.

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Drabbe (1955: 19-20)… :

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Drabbe (1955: 28-31, q.v. Guetjens 1950: 2) gives free pronouns for East Marind in three case forms as follows:

Nominative forms can be used to indicate direct or indirect objects as well as subjects. Emphatics are also used to indicate reflexives. Free possessives may also be preposed to verbs to indicate the possessor of an affected nominal object.

Emphatic pronouns can be divided into two classes, the first and second persons which are suffixed with /-ahan/ (Guertjens 1950: 52 gives /ohan/,) and the third persons /*anVp/ distinguished by gender ablaut. Emphatic third persons are given as the regular third person forms in the Drabbe's comparative vocabularies alongside cognate forms in Yaqay (1955: 150-151.)

Third person nominatives /*Vpe/, while found in other Marind dialects, are also used as demonstratives meaning “that” (q.v. Lebold Kriens and de Vries 2010: 47-48, 49;) their use as personal pronouns may well be secondary. That said, the bases of these forms /e u i/ are not only the proposed possessors but very likely the original gender particles which were postposed to gave rise to Fly River ablaut in the first place.

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Drabbe (1955: 104-105, q.v. van der Kolk 1926: ibid.) …:

The original form of the third person possessor was /e-/, reflecting third person singular masculine /*e/, both high vowel variants /i- u-/ being induced by vowel harmony with the possessed root or the raising of /e/ to /i/ when followed by root-initial /*j/.

This system is very similar to that of Boazi (q.v. Drabbe 1954: 119,) except that the distinct second person plural possessor has been lost, and only one first person form is suppletive.

In two examples, Drabbe states that the third person possessor is /o-/ [ᵒ-], but this cannot be verified as both are suppletive:

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